Description: JOHN WADE FANTASTIC MIXED MEDIA ART BY THIS AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST FROM 1975. FRAMED 18 1/2 X 22 1/2 AND ART MEASURING APPROX 10 3/4 X 13 1/2 INCHES Wade, John L. (active Philadelphia, PA, 2005) Bibliography and ExhibitionsMONOGRAPHS AND SOLO EXHIBITIONS: GENERAL BOOKS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS: EDMUNDS, ALLAN L. and LOUISE D. STONE.Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection.Manchester: Hudson Hills, 2004.240 pp., 126 color plates, 21 b&w illus., bibliog., index. Texts by Halima Taha, Lois H. Johnson and Patricia Smith, Keith A. Morrison, and Claude Elliott. Among the artists who have had prints made at Brandywine are: Candida Alvarez, Emma Amos, Akili Ron Anderson, Benny Andrews, Roland Ayers, Belkis Ayon, Romare Bearden, Ron Bechet, John T. Biggers, Camille Billops, Willie Birch, Terry Boddie, Berrisford Boothe, James Brantley, Moe Brooker, Marvin P. Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Weldon Butler, Selma Burke, Nanette Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Ed Clark, Kevin E. Cole, William Cordova, Adger Cowans, Alonzo Davis, Louis Delsarte, John E. Dowell, David Driskell, James Dupree, Walter Edmonds, Allen Edmunds, Melvin Edwards, Rodney Ewing, Agbo Folarin, Reginald Gammon, Sam Gilliam, Simon Gouverneur, Leamon Green, Eugene Grigsby, Maren Hassinger, Barkley L. Hendricks, Leon Hicks, Vandorn Hinnant, Margo Humphrey, Curlee Raven Holton, Richard Hunt, Bill Hutson, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Wadsworth Jarrell, Paul F. Keene, Jr., Lois Mailou Jones, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Souleymane Keita, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Samella Lewis, Arturo Lindsay, Alvin Loving, Deryl Mackie, Jimmy Mance, Percy Martin, Valerie Maynard, Donna Meeks, Charles Mills, Ibrahim Miranda, Quentin Morris, Keith Morrison, Evangeline Montgomery, Quentin Morris, Abdouleye Ndoye, Floyd Newsum, Magdalene Odundo, Ademola Olugebefola, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Laurie Ourlicht, Joe Overstreet, William Pajaud, Howardena Pindell, James Phillips, Michael Platt, Eric Pryor, Leo Robinson, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Juan Sanchez, John T. Scott, Charles Searles, AJ Smith, Frank Smith, George Smith, Vincent Smith, Sylvia Snowden, Edgar Sorrells-Adewale, David Stephens, Hubert Taylor, Evelyn Terry, Phyllis Thompson, Kaylynn Sullivan Twotrees, Larry Walker, John Wade, Richard Watson, James Lesesne Wells, Stanley Whitney, Carl Joe Williams, Michael Kelly Williams, Pat Ward Williams, Gilberto Wilson, Clarence Wood, Shirley Woodson, and Barbara Chase-Riboud. [Also issued in a limited numbered edition of 396 copies, including three offset lithographs by Sam Gilliam, each signed and numbered in pencil, bound in red cloth, in matching cloth covered slipcase.] 4to (12.4 x 9.2 in.), cloth, d.j. First ed. ELKINS PARK (PA). Tyler School of Art.Tyler Faculty START Exhibition.September 2-23, 1987.Group exhibition. Included: John Dowell, John Wade, Stanley Whitney. PHILADELPHIA (PA). School District and Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center.Afro-American Artists, 1800-1969.December 5-29, 1969.40 pp., list of over 100 artists. Important exhibition juried by Al Hollingsworth, Reginald Gammon and Louis Sloan. Intro. by curator Randall J. Craig mentions many artists not in the exhibition. Exhibition includes: Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Ralph Arnold, James Ayers, Frederick Bacon, Joseph C. Bailey, Janette Banks, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Harry W. Bayton, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, James Brantley, Arthur Britt, Charles E. Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Reginald Bryant, Barbara Bullock, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Frederick Campbell, Barbara Chase-Riboud, LeRoy Clarke, Louise Clement, Eldzier Cortor, R. J. Craig, Nicholas Davis, William Day, Avel DeKnight, J. Brooks Dendy, James Denmark, Reba Dickerson (a.k.a. Reba Dickerson-Hill), Thomas Dickerson Jr., Robert Duncanson, Walter Edmonds, Cliff Eubanks Jr., Charlotte White Franklin, Allan Freelon, Reginald Gammon, Charles W. Gavin, Ranson Z. Gaymon, Walter S. Gilliam, Marvin Hardin, Bernard Harmon, Palmer Hayden, Barkley Hendricks, Alvin Hollingsworth, Humbert Howard, Alfonzo Hudson, Leroy Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Lois M. Jones, Cliff Joseph, Paul Keene, Columbus P. Knox, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, James Lewis, Norman Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Geraldine McCullough, Charles McGee, Thomas A. McKinney, Lloyd McNeill, Juanita Miller, Robert C. Moore, Jimmie Mosely, Horace Pippin, James Porter, Simon D. Prioleau, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Ed J. Purnell, Percy Ricks, Anita B. Riley, Faith Ringgold, Raymond Saunders, Charles Searles, Michael Shelton, Thomas Sills, John Simpson, Merton Simpson, Louis Sloan, Carl R. Smith, Dolphus Smith, Philippe Smith, Frank Stephens, Mary L. Stuckey, Eldridge Suggs III, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Mary Alice Taylor, Russ Thompson, Dox Thrash, Ellen Powell Tiberino, Lloyd Toone, John Wade, Cranston Oliver Walker, Laura Wheeler Waring, Howard Watson, John Brantley Wilder, Earl A. Wilkie, Ed Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Charles E. Yates, Hartwell Yeargans. 4to (26 cm.), wraps. First ed. This list of African-American visual artists is a list that includes dates of birth and death of historically recognized African-American fine artists known for the creation of artworks that are primarily visual in nature, including traditional media such as painting, sculpture, photography, and printmaking, as well as more recent genres, including installation art, performance art, body art, conceptual art, video art, and digital art. The entries are in alphabetical order by surname. Artists Scipio Moorhead, Portrait of poet Phillis Wheatley, 1773, in the frontispiece to her book Poems on Various Subjects Edward Mitchell Bannister, Driving Home the Cows 1881 Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, mixed media, 1886 Henry Ossawa Tanner, Gateway, Tangier, 1912, oil on canvas, 18 7/16" × 15 5/16", St. Louis Art Museum Charles Alston, Again The Springboard Of Civilization, 1943 (WWII African American soldier) Larry D. Alexander,Greenville Courthouse, 1998A–BPanteha Abareshi (born 1999), multidisciplinary artistNina Chanel Abney (born 1982), painterBlanch Ackers (1914–2003), painterTerry Adkins (1953–2014), artist[1]Mequitta Ahuja (born 1976), painter, installation artistLarry D. Alexander (born 1953), painterLaylah Ali (born 1968), painterJules T. Allen (born 1947), photographerTina Allen (1949–2008), sculptorSteve R. Allen (born 1954), painterCharles Alston (1907–1977), painter[2][1]Amalia Amaki (born 1959), artistEmma Amos (1938–2020), painter[2]Benny Andrews (1930–2006), painter[2][1]Edgar Arceneaux (born 1972), drawing artistNellie Ashford (born c. 1943), folk artist[3]James Atkins (b. 1941), painterRoland Ayers (1932–2014), printmakerRadcliffe Bailey (born 1968) collage, sculpture[4][5]Kyle Baker (born 1965), cartoonistMatt Baker (1921–1959), comic book artistJames Presley Ball (1825–1904), photographerAlvin Baltrop (1948–2004), photographerHenry Bannarn (1910–1965), painter[1]Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828–1901), painter[2][1]Ernie Barnes (1938–2009), neo-Mannerist artist[2]Richmond Barthé (1901–1989), sculptor[2][1]Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), painter[2]C. M. Battey (1873–1927), photographerRomare Bearden (1911–1988), painter[2][1]Arthello Beck (1941–2004), painterArthur P. Bedou (1882–1966), photographerDarrin Bell (born 1975), cartoonistMary A. Bell (1873–1941)Dawoud Bey (born 1953), photographer[2]Sharif Bey (born 1974), ceramistJohn T. Biggers (1924–2001), muralist[2][1]Sanford Biggers (born 1970), interdisciplinaryGene Bilbrew (1923–1974), cartoonist and fetish artistCamille Billops (1933–2019), filmmaker, sculptor, painter, printmakerMcArthur Binion (born 1946), painterRobert Blackburn (1920–2003) master printmaker, lithographer, and educator.[6]Thomas Blackshear (born 1955)Betty Blayton (1937–2016), painter, printmaker[1]Chakaia Booker (born 1953), sculptor[2]Edythe Boone (born 1938), muralistCharles Boyce (born 1949), cartoonistTina Williams Brewer, fiber artist[7]Michael Bramwell (born 1953), conceptual artistJames Brantley (b. 1945), painterMark Bradford (born 1961)Elenora "Rukiya" Brown, doll creatorElmer Brown (1909–1971)Frank J. Brown (1956–2020), sculptorFrederick J. Brown (1945–2012), painter[2]Larry Poncho Brown (born 1962)Manuelita Brown, sculptorRobert Brown (c. 1936 – 2007), cartoonistBeverly Buchanan (1940–2015), painter, sculptor[1]Selma Burke (1900–1995), sculptor[1]Calvin Burnett (1921–2007), book illustrator[1]Pauline Powell Burns (1872–1912), painterJohn Bush (?–1754), powder horn carverBisa Butler (born 1973), quilterRobert Butler (1943–2014), painterC–DFrank Calloway (1915–2014)E. Simms Campbell (1906–1971), cartoonist[1]Allen 'Big Al' Carter (1947–2008)Fred Carter (born 1938), cartoonistBernie Casey (1939–2017), painter[1]Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), sculptor and printmaker[2][1]Nick Cave (born 1959), performance artistMichael Ray Charles (born 1967), painter[2]Barbara Chase-Riboud (born 1936), sculptor[1]Jamour Chames (born 1989), painterDon Hogan Charles (1938–2017), photographerCaitlin Cherry (born 1987), painter and sculptorClaude Clark (1915–2001), painter and printmaker[2]Edward Clark (1926–2019), painterSonya Clark (born 1967), textile and multimedia artistWillie Cole (born 1955), painter[2]Robert Colescott (1925–2009), painter[2]Eldzier Cortor (1916–2015), artist and printmaker[1]Pamela Council (born 1986), multidisciplinary artist, sculptorErnest Crichlow (1914–2005), social realist artist[1]Allan Crite (1910–2007), painter[2] [1]Njideka Akunyili Crosby (born 1983), painterEmilio Cruz (1938–2004), painter[2]Frank E. Cummings III (born 1938), woodworkerMichael Cummings (born 1945), textile artistUlysses Davis (1913–1990), sculptor[2]Bing Davis (born 1937), potter and graphic artist[1]Charles C. Dawson (1889–1981) illustrator, painter, and printmakerRoy DeCarava (1919–2009), photographer[2]Beauford Delaney (1901–1979), painter[8]Joseph Delaney (1904–1991)[2]Xiomara De Oliver (born 1967), Canadian-born American painter.[9]Woody De Othello (born 1991), ceramicist, painterLouis Delsarte (1944–2020), artist[1]Joseph Clinton Devillis (1878–1912), painterThornton Dial (1928–2016)[2]Terry Dixon (born 1969), painter and multimedia artistJeff Donaldson (1932–2004), painter and criticAaron Douglas (1899–1979), painter[2][1]Emory Douglas (born 1943), Black Panther artistJohn E. Dowell Jr. (born 1941), printmaker, etcher, lithographer, and painterDavid Driskell (1931–2020), artist and scholarRobert Seldon Duncanson (1821–1872), Hudson River School[2][1]Edward Dwight (born 1933) sculptor, painter, authorE–HWalter Edmonds (1938– 2011), muralistWilliam Edmondson (1874–1951), folk art sculptor[2][1]Allan L. Edmunds (born 1949), printmakerMel Edwards (born 1937), sculptor[2][1]Janiva Ellis (born 1987), painterWalter Ellison (1899–1977), painter[2]Minnie Evans (1892–1987), folk artist[2] [1]Lola Flash (born 1959), photographerLaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982), photographerMeta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877–1968), artist[2][1]Ellen Gallagher (born 1965)[2]Reginald Gammon (1921-2005), painter, printmaker, activistMelvino Garretti (born 1946)[10]Theaster Gates (born 1973), sculptor, ceramicist, and performance artistReginald K (Kevin) Gee (born 1964), painterHerbert Gentry (1919–2003), painterWilda Gerideau-Squires (born 1946), photographerRobert A. Gilbert (c. 1870 – 1942), nature photographer[11]Leah Gilliam (born 1967), media artist and filmmakerSam Gilliam (1933–2022), painter[2] [1]Russell T. Gordon (1936–2013), printmaker[2]Billy Graham (1935–1999), comic book artistLonnie Graham, photographer and installation artistDeborah Grant (born 1968), painterTodd Gray (born 1954), photographer, installation and performance artistLeamon Green (born 1959)Renee Green (born 1959), installation artist[2]Mario Gully, comic book artistTyree Guyton (born 1955)[2]Ed Hamilton (born 1947), sculptorPatrick Earl Hammie (born 1981), painterDavid Hammons (born 1943), artist[2]Trenton Doyle Hancock (born 1974)[2]Austin Hansen (1910–1996), photographerJohn Wesley Hardrick (1891–1948), painter[2] [1]Edwin Harleston (1882–1931), painterElise Forrest Harleston (1891–1970), photographerJerry Harris (1945–2016), sculptorJohn T. Harris (1908-1972), painter, printmaker, educatorKira Lynn Harris (born 1963), multidisciplinary[12]Lawrence Harris (born 1937), painterIlana Harris-Babou (born 1991), sculptor and installation artist[13]Marren Hassenger (born 1947), sculptor, installation, performance[14]Palmer Hayden (1893–1973), painter[2][1]Donté K. Hayes (b. 1975), ceramicistBarkley Hendricks (1945–2017), painterNestor Hernández (1961–2006), photographerGeorge Herriman (1880–1944), cartoonist[2]LaToya M. Hobbs (born 1988) printmaker, painter, mixed media artist [15]Alvin Hollingsworth (1928–2000), illustrator, painterHumbert Howard (1905 or 1915-1990), painter, ceramicistWilliam Howard (active 19th century), American woodworker and craftsmanBryce Hudson (born 1979), painter, sculptor[2]Julien Hudson (1811–1844), painter, sculptor[2]David Huffman (born 1963), painter[16]Edward Ellis Hughes (1940-2017), painterRichard Hunt (born 1935), sculptor[2][1]Clementine Hunter (1886/7–1988), folk artist[2][1]J–OWadsworth Jarrell (born 1929), painter, sculptorOliver Lee Jackson (born 1935), painter, sculptor, printmaker, educatorTomashi Jackson (born 1980), multimedia artist, painter, videographer, textile-maker and sculptor[17]Steffani Jemison (born 1981), performance artist, video artistWilmer Angier Jennings (1910–1990), printmaker, painter, jewelerAnnette P. Jimerson (born 1966), painterJoshua Johnson (c. 1763 – c. 1824), portrait painter and folk artist[2][1]LeRoy Johnson (born 1937), multidisciplinary artistMalvin Gray Johnson (1896–1934), painter[1]Martina Johnson-Allen (born 1947), painter, sculptor, and printmaker, educatorRashid Johnson (born 1977), conceptual artistSargent Johnson (1888–1967), sculptor[2] [1]William H. Johnson (1902–1970)[2][1]Calvin B. Jones (1934–2010), painter, muralistIda E. Jones, painterJennie C. Jones (born 1968), multidisciplinaryLois Mailou Jones (1905–1998), painter[2][1]Lawrence A. Jones (1910–1996), artist, teacherSamuel Levi Jones (born 1978), painter, assemblage artistSeitu Jones (born 1951), multidisciplinary, sculptorEddie Jack Jordan (1925–1999), artist, teacherRonald Joseph (1910–1992), artist, teacher, and printmakerTitus Kaphar (born 1976), painter[18]Richard Gordon Kendall (1933–2008), Texas-based outsider artistAutumn Knight (born 1980), interdisciplinary artist working with performance, installation, and text[19]Gwendolyn Knight (1914–2005), artist[1]Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), painter[2][1]Deana Lawson (born 1979), photographer[20]Carolyn Lazard (born 1987), conceptual artistHughie Lee-Smith (1915–1999), artist[2][1]Simone Leigh (born 1967), sculpture, ceramicsEdmonia Lewis (c. 1843 – 1879), artist[2][1]Nate Lewis (born 1985), visual artistNorman Lewis (1909–1979), painter[2][1]Joe Louis Light (1934–2005), painter and sculptorGlenn Ligon (born 1960), painter[2]James Little (born 1952), painter, curatorWillie Little (born 1961), multimedia artist, painter, sculptor, authorLlanakila, artist, painter, digital illustrator, and digital artistEdward L. Loper, Sr. (1916–2011), painterWhitfield Lovell (born 1960), artistAlvin D. Loving (1935–2005), artistEric N. Mack (born 1987), painter, multi-media installation artist, and sculptor[21]Gwendolyn Ann Magee (1943–2011), artist, quilter[22]Clarence Major (born 1936), painterAjuan Mance, visual artist, professor[23]Kerry James Marshall (born 1955), painter[2]Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005), painterLouise Martin (1911–1995), photographerRichard Mayhew (born 1934), Afro-Native American, landscape painter[24]Valerie Maynard (born 1937), sculptor, printmaker, painterEaly Mays (born 1959), painterWilliam McBride (artist) (1912–2000), artist, designer and collectorHoward McCalebb (born 1947), artistCorky McCoy, illustratorCharles McGee, (1924–2021) painterCharles McGill (1964–2017), artist, educatorJulie Mehretu (born 1970), painter, printmakerTroy Michie (born 1985), collage artist, painter, interdisciplinary installation artist, and sculptorNicole Miller (born 1982), video artistJoe Minter (born 1943) sculptor, creator of African Village in America[25]Dean Mitchell (born 1957), painterScipio Moorhead (active 1770s), painter[1]Barbara Tyson Mosley (born 1950), abstract painter[26]Archibald Motley (1891–1981), painter[2][1]Zora J. Murff (born 1987), photographerWangechi Mutu (born 1972) painter, sculptorGus Nall (1919–1995), painterSenga Nengudi (born 1943), sculptor, performance artistHarold Newton (1934–1994), artistLorraine O'Grady (born 1934), conceptual artistTurtel Onli (born 1952), cartoonistJackie Ormes (1911–1985), cartoonistJohn Outterbridge (1933–2020), assemblage artist[2][1]Joe Overstreet (1933–2019), artist[1]P–SJennifer Packer (born 1985), painterGordon Parks (1912–2006), photographer, director[2][1]Cecelia Pedescleaux (born 1945), quilterJanet Taylor Pickett (born 1948), mixed media artistDelilah Pierce (1904–1992), artistEarle M. Pilgrim (1923–1976), artistHowardena Pindell (born 1943), painter[2]Jerry Pinkney (1939–2021), illustrator[2]Adrian Piper (born 1948), conceptual artist[2]Rose Piper (1917–2005), painter and textile designer[27]Horace Pippin (1888–1946), painter[2][1]P. H. Polk (1898–1984), photographerStephanie Pogue (1944–2002), printmakerCarl Robert Pope (born 1961), photographer[2]William Pope.L (born 1955) conceptual artistCharles Ethan Porter (1847/49–1923) painterHarriet Powers (1837–1910), folk artist[2]Walter Price (artist) (born 1989), painterMartin Puryear (born 1941), sculptor[2][1]Mavis Pusey (1928–2019), abstract painterBob Ragland (1938–2021), painter and sculptorPatrick H. Reason (1816–1898)Earle Wilton Richardson (1912–1935), artist[1]Taft Richardson Jr. (1943–2008), folk artistFaith Ringgold (born 1930), painter[2][1]Haywood Rivers (1922–2001), painterAmber Robles-Gordon, installation artistArthur Rose Sr. (1921–1995), multidisciplinaryBayeté Ross Smith (born 1976), photographerAlison Saar (born 1956), artist[2][1]Betye Saar (born 1926), artist[2][1]Synthia Saint James (born 1949) painterCharles L. Sallée Jr. (1923–2006), painter[2][28]Reginald Sanders (1921–2001), visual artistRaymond Saunders (born 1934), painter[1]Augusta Savage (1892–1962), sculptor[2][1]Dread Scott (born 1965), performance, photography, installation, screen-printing and videoJohn T. Scott (1940–2007), artistJoyce J. Scott (born 1948), sculptor[2]Lorenzo Scott (born 1934), painterWilliam Edouard Scott (1884–1964), painter[2][1]Charles Searles (1937-2004), painter, sculptorCharles Sebree (1914–1985), painter[2][1]Gail Shaw-Clemons, printmaker, educatorThomas Sills (1914–2000), painterGary Simmons (born 1964), artistLorna Simpson (born 1960), artist[2]Merton Simpson (1928–2013), painterWilliam Simpson (1818–1872), portrait painter[1]Ferrari Sheppard (born 1983), painterAmy Sherald (born 1973), painterCarroll Sockwell (1943–1992), abstract painter[29]Jeff Sonhouse (born 1968), painterCauleen Smith (born 1967), filmmakerLeslie Smith III (born 1985), painterVincent D. Smith (1929–2003), painter and printmaker[30][31]William E. Smith (1913–1997), painter and printmakerGilda Snowden (1954–2014)[2]Mitchell Squire (born 1958), American installation artist, sculptor and performance artistRaymond Steth (1916–1997)[2]Renee Stout (born 1958), artist[2]Thelma Johnson Streat (1911–1959) American painter, dancer, educatorMartine Syms (born 1988), artistT–ZHenry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937), artist[2][1]Ron Tarver (born 1957), photographer, artist, and educatorMargaret Taylor-Burroughs (1915–2010)[2][1]Alma Thomas (1891–1978), painter[2] [1]Hank Willis Thomas (born 1976), photographerMickalene Thomas (born 1971), painter and installation artistBob Thompson (1937–1966), painter[2][1]Mildred Thompson (1935–2003), abstract painter, printmaker and sculptorDox Thrash (1892–1962), printmaker, sculptor[2] [1]Bill Traylor (1856–1949)[2][1]Henry Taylor (born 1958), painterYvonne Edwards Tucker (born 1941), potter[32]Adejoke Tugbiyele (born 1977), sculptor, multidisciplinary artist[33]Morrie Turner (1923–2014), cartoonistJames Van Der Zee (1886–1983), photographer[2] [1]Kara Walker (born 1969), artist[2] [1]William Walker (1927–2011), Chicago muralistEugene Warburg, (1825–1859), sculptorLaura Wheeler Waring (1887–1948), painter[2][1]E. M. Washington (born 1962), printmaker and counterfeiterCullen Washington, Jr. (born 1972) abstract painter.[34]James W. Washington, Jr. (1908–2000), painter and sculptor[1]Howard N. Watson (1929–2022), watercolor painterRichard J. Watson (B. 1946), painter, printmakerLewis WattsCarrie Mae Weems (born 1953), photographer[2]Pheoris West (1950–2021)Charles Wilbert White (1918–1979), muralist[2][1]Fo Wilson, Interdisciplinary artist and designerJack Whitten (1939–2018), painterKehinde Wiley (born 1977), painterGerald Williams (artist) (born 1941), painterWilliam T. Williams (born 1942), painter[1]Deborah Willis (born 1948), photographerEllis Wilson (1899–1977), painter[2][1]Fred Wilson (born 1954), conceptual artistJohn Woodrow Wilson (1922–2015), sculptor[2][1]Beulah Woodard (1895–1955), sculptorHale Woodruff (1900–1980), painter[2][1]Richard Wyatt, Jr. (born 1955), painter, muralistRichard Yarde (1939–2011), watercoloristJoseph Yoakum (1890–1972), self-taught landscape artistKenneth Victor Young (1933–2017), painter, designer, educator[35]Purvis Young (1943–2010), artistArtist groupsThe HighwaymenAfriCOBRAWhere We AtSpiral (arts alliance)See alsoflagUnited States portaliconVisual arts portalHarlem RenaissanceAfrican-American artThe Quilts of Gees BendBlack Arts MovementList of American artists before 1900List of American artists 1900 and after African-American art is a broad term describing visual art created by African Americans. The range of art they have created, and are continuing to create, over more than two centuries is as varied as the artists themselves.[1] Some have drawn on cultural traditions in Africa, and other parts of the world, for inspiration. Others have found inspiration in traditional African-American plastic art forms, including basket weaving, pottery, quilting, woodcarving and painting, all of which are sometimes classified as "handicrafts" or "folk art".[2][3] Many have also been inspired by European traditions in art, as well as personal experience of life, work and studies there.[4][5][6] Like their western colleagues, many work in Realist, Modernist and Conceptual styles, and all the variations in between, including America's home-grown Abstract expressionist movement, an approach to art seen in the work of Howardena Pindell, McArthur Binion and Norman Lewis, among others.[7] Like their peers, African-American artists also work in an array of media, including painting, print-making, collage, assemblage, drawing, sculpture and more.[8] Their themes are similarly varied, although many also address, or feel they must address, issues of American Blackness.[9][10] Once known as the "sculptor of horrors", Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller favored a mix of conceptual realism and symbolism, and took inspiration from ghost stories.[11] Mentored by Henry Osawa Tanner, critiqued by Auguste Rodin, and exhibited in the 1903 Salon,[11][12] she recognized that a continued career relied on "meet[ing] requests for race-based work from the leading Black scholars, activists, and luminaries who controlled the commission pipeline".[13] By accepting that reality, W. E. B. Du Bois became one of her patrons, and she became the first African-American woman recipient of a federal commission ... for progress-themed dioramas for Jamestown's tercentennial ... and, later, for the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation", but it all came at some cost.[11][12][13] Another extreme is illustrated by an artist like Emory Douglas, the former minister of culture for the Black Panther Party, whose art was consciously radical, and has since become iconic.[14] "[C]redited with popularising the term 'pigs' for corrupt police officers", his best-known imagery was often harshly critical of the existing power structure, openly violent and, like all political iconography, intended to persuade.[14][15] Three sculptors Edmonia Lewis was commissioned to do President Grant's portrait, c. 1870. Augusta Savage with Realization, her WPA Federal Art Project, 1938. Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was Rodin's protegee, 1910.Sculptor Edmonia Lewis, by contrast, financed her first trip to Europe in 1865 by selling sculptures of abolitionist John Brown and Robert Gould Shaw, the Union Colonel who led the enlisted black 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War.[16] She would later incorporate issues of race more subtly, using modern themes and ancient symbols in Neoclassical sculpture to suggestive ends.[5] In response to a bust Lewis had made of her, her patron Anna Quincey Waterston wrote admiringly of her: ″Tis fitting that a daughter of the race / Whose chains are breaking should receive a gift / So rare as genius.″[16] The grandchild of slaves, print artist and sculptor Elizabeth Catlett was also an activist. Although some of her art includes confrontational symbols from the Black Power movement, she is best-known for her portrayals of African-American heroes: MLK, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman — and strong maternal women.[17][18][19] Sculptor Augusta Savage's work was similarly uplifting. In a large commission for the 1939 New York World's Fair, Lift Every Voice and Sing, which is often described as the Black National Anthem, inspired a called Lift Every Voice and Sing, also known as The Harp as it depicted black singers as the strings of the instrument.[6] Richard Hunt, is a sculptor born on Chicago's South Side in 1935. A recurrent theme of his work is the integration and expression of the African American history and culture, despite his focus on his own freedom as an artist to work in an abstract mode or one referential or suggestive of his subjects. A descendant of slaves brought to this country through the port of Savannah, Georgia, Richard Hunt has singularly made the largest contribution to public art in the U.S.; more than 160 public sculpture commissions grace prominent locations in 22 states. As a 19-year-old, Richard Hunt taught himself how to weld. Only two years later, he gained national recognition when the Museum of Modern Art acquired his sculpture, Arachne. Another Richard Hunt sculpture, Hero Construction, now stands as the centerpiece of The Art Institute of Chicago. Richard Hunt has held over 100 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums.[20] Painter Faith Ringgold, who is known for her politicized art, has been described as having a "gorgeous gut punch".[21] Her The American People Series #20: Die which depicts a bloody clash between Cubist black and white figures, was hung opposite Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in the newly renovated MOMA in 2019, the better to start a conversation between the "savage force" of their respective compositions.[21][22][23] Conceptual artist Fred Wilson focuses on other kinds of composition, "juxtaposing wildly anomalous items, such as a slave statue and a set of fine china". A 1999 MacArthur "genius grant" recipient, his work encourages "unpacking and upending assumptions about race and history surrounding each".[24][25] Narrative artists like Jacob Lawrence use history painting to tell a story in images, as his own Migration Series shows. The 60-panel epic depicts the relocation of a million African Americans to the industrialized North after World War II.[8][26] As in the cases of Kehinde Wiley[citation needed] and Amy Sherald,[27] history painting can also involve portraiture; in this instance, the official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama, respectively. Artists like Horace Pippen and Romare Bearden chose more ordinary subject matter, relying on contemporary life to inspire uncontroversial imagery. The influential Henry Tanner did, too, in paintings like The Banjo Lesson and the Thankful Poor[4] although those paintings — like many of his landscapes and Biblical scenes — often seem illuminated from within. The first African-American to enroll in the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1880, Tanner studied with Realist painter Thomas Eakens.[4] He went on to become the first African-American artist to earn international acclaim. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1910 and designated an honorary chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor in 1923.[28] Early African-American artPre-colonial, Antebellum and Civil War erasEarly African-American Art Powder horn carved by John Bush, 1754 Engraving of a chained female slave by Patrick H. Reason, 1835. Often circulated with the caption "Am I not a woman and a sister?" Harriet Powers, Bible quilt, Mixed Media. 1898.The earliest evidence of African-American art in the United States is the work of skilled craftsmen slaves from New England. Two categories of slave craft items survive from colonial America: articles that were created for personal use by slaves and articles created for public use. Examples from between the 17th century and the early 19th century include: small drums, quilts, wrought-iron figures, baskets, ceramic vessels, and gravestones.[29][30] Many of Africa's most skilled slave artisans were hired out by slave owners. With the consent of their masters, some slave artisans were also able to keep a small percentage of the wages earned in their spare time to save enough money to purchase their freedom, and that of their family members.[31] The public works of art produced by slave craftsmen were an important contribution to the Colonial economy. In New England and the Mid-Atlantic colonies, slaves were apprenticed as goldsmiths, cabinetmakers, engravers, carvers, portrait painters, carpenters, masons and iron workers. The construction and decoration of the Janson House, built on the Hudson River in 1712, was the work of African-Americans. Many of the oldest buildings in Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia were built by craftsmen slaves.[30] In the mid-18th century, John Bush was a powder horn carver and soldier with the Massachusetts militia fighting with the British in the French and Indian War.[32][33] Patrick H. Reason, Joshua Johnson, and Scipio Moorhead were among the earliest known portrait artists, from the period of 1773–1887. Patronage by some white families allowed for private tutoring in special cases. Many of these sponsoring whites were abolitionists. The artists received more encouragement and were better able to support themselves in cities, of which there were more in the North and border states. Harriet Powers (1837–1910) was an African-American folk artist and quilt maker from rural Georgia, United States, born into slavery. Now nationally recognized for her quilts, she used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories and astronomical events on her quilts. Only two of her late quilts have survived: Bible Quilt 1886 and Bible Quilt 1898. Her quilts are considered among the finest examples of 19th-century Southern quilting.[34][35] Like Powers, the women of Gee's Bend developed a distinctive, bold and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African-American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity. Although widely separated by geography, they have qualities reminiscent of Amish quilts and Modern art. The women of Gee's Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present.[36] At one time, scholars believed slaves sometimes used quilt blocks to alert other slaves to escape plans during the time of the Underground Railroad,[37] but most historians do not agree. Quilting remains alive as form of artistic expression in the African-American community. ReconstructionAfter the Civil War, it became increasingly acceptable for African American-created works to be exhibited in museums, and painters and sculptors increasingly produced works for this purpose.[38] These were works mostly in the European Romantic and Classical traditions of landscapes and portraits. Edward Mitchell Bannister, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Edmonia Lewis are the most notable from this period. Others include Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, a female artist who, like Edmonia Lewis, was a sculptor, as well as Grafton Tyler Brown and Nelson A. Primus.[13][11][39] The goal of widespread recognition across racial boundaries was first eased within America's big cities, including Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, New York, and New Orleans. Even in these places, however, there were discriminatory limitations. Abroad, however, African Americans were much better received. In Europe — especially Paris, France — these artists were freer to experiment with techniques outside traditional western art. Freedom of expression was much more prevalent in Paris and, to a lesser extent, Munich and Rome.[citation needed] Contemporary artArchibald Motley Self portrait, 1920 Self portrait, 1933Jacob Lawrence Jacob Lawrence gained recognition at age 23 for his 60-panel Migration Series, depicting the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. The name of this panel is Douglass Argued Against Poor Negroes Leaving the South Portrait of Jacob Lawrence, 1941.The Harlem RenaissanceSee also: Harlem Renaissance, Chicago Black Renaissance, and Black Renaissance in D.C.The Harlem Renaissance refers to an enormous flourishing in African-American art of all kinds, including visual art. Ideas that were already widespread in other parts of the world at the time had begun to spread into U.S. artistic communities during the 1920s. Notable artists in this period included Richmond Barthé, Aaron Douglas, Lawrence Harris, Palmer Hayden, William H. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, John T. Biggers, Earle Wilton Richardson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, Hale Woodruff and photographer James Van Der Zee.[citation needed] William E. Harmon, an art patron and aficionado, established the Harmon Foundation in 1922, and it served as a large-scale patron of African-American art until 1967, generating interest in, and recognition for, artists who might have otherwise remained unknown. The Harmon Award and the annual "Exhibition of the Work of Negro Artists" further contributed to the support, as did the William E. Harmon Foundation Award for Distinguished Achievement Among Negroes, which although not limited to visual artists was awarded to several of them, including Hale Woodruff, Palmer Hayden and Archibald Motley. In 1929, the funding temporarily ended as a result of the Great Depression, only to resume mounting exhibitions and offering funding once the economy revived artists like Jacob Lawrence, Laura Wheeler Waring and others.[citation needed] By 1933, the U.S. Treasury Department's Public Works of Art Project was attempting to provide support for artists in 1933, but their efforts proved ineffective. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935, and that program succeeded at providing all American artists, and especially African-American artists, with a means to earn a living in a devastated economy. By the middle of the 1930s, more than 250,000 African Americans were involved with the WPA,[40] including Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, sculptor William Artis; painter and children's book illustrator Ernest Crichlow, cartoonist and illustrator Elton C. Fax, photographer Marvin Smith, Dox Thrash, who invented the printmaking method carborundum Mezzotint, painters Georgette Seabrooke and Elba Lightfoot, best known for their Harlem Hospital murals; Chicago printmaker Eldzier Cortor; and renowned Illinois-based artist Adrian Troy and many others.[40] Many of these artists found themselves drawn to the interwar movement known as Social Realism, which reflected the politics and socioeconomic views of a generation that had been drafted into WWI, only to dance through the Roaring 1920s and crash in the Great Depression. Important cities with significant black populations and important African-American art circles included Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The WPA led to a new wave of important black art professors. Mixed media, abstract art, cubism, and social realism became not only acceptable, but desirable. Artists of the WPA united to form the 1935 Harlem Artists Guild, which developed community art facilities in major cities. Leading forms of art included drawing, sculpture, printmaking, painting, pottery, quilting, weaving and photography. In 1939, however, the costly WPA and its projects all were terminated.[citation needed] In 1943, James A. Porter, a professor in the Department of Art at Howard University, wrote the first major text on African-American art and artists, Modern Negro Art.[citation needed] Mid-century Sunday Morning Breakfast by Horace Pippin, 1943. Romare Bearden, After Church, n.d.In the 1950s and 1960s, few African-American artists were widely known or accepted. Despite this, the Highwaymen, a loose association of 26 African-American artists from Fort Pierce, Florida, created idyllic, quickly realized images of the Florida landscape and peddled some 200,000 of them from the trunks of their cars. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was impossible to find galleries interested in selling artworks by a group of unknown, self-taught African Americans,[41] so they sold their art directly to the public rather than through galleries and art agents. Rediscovered in the mid-1990s, they are recognized today as an important part of American folk history,[42][43] and the current market price for an original Highwaymen painting can easily bring in thousands of dollars. In 2004, the original group of 26 were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.[44] Currently eight of the 26 are deceased, including A. Hair, H. Newton, Ellis and George Buckner, A. Moran, L. Roberts, Hezekiah Baker and, most recently, Johnny Daniels. The full list of 26 can be found in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, as well as various highwaymen and Florida art websites. After the Second World War, some artists took a global approach, working and exhibiting abroad, in Paris, and as the decade wore on, relocated gradually in other welcoming cities such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Stockholm: Barbara Chase-Riboud, Edward Clark, Harvey Cropper, Beauford Delaney, Herbert Gentry,[45] Bill Hutson, Clifford Jackson,[46] Sam Middleton,[47] Larry Potter, Haywood Bill Rivers, Merton Simpson, and Walter Williams.[48][49] Some African-American artists did make it into important New York galleries by the 1950s and 1960s: Horace Pippin, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Richard Hunt, William T. Williams, Norman Lewis, Thomas Sills,[50] and Sam Gilliam were among the few who had successfully been received in a gallery setting. Richard Hunt was the first African American visual artist to serve on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Hunt was the fourth African American on the council, after Marian Anderson, Ralph Ellison, and Duke Ellington. In 1971, Richard Hunt was the first African American sculptor to have a major solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s led artists to capture and express the changing times. Galleries and community art centers developed for the purpose of displaying African-American art, and collegiate teaching positions were created by and for African-American artists. Some African-American women were also active in the feminist art movement in the 1970s. Faith Ringgold made work that featured black female subjects and that addressed the conjunction of racism and sexism in the U.S., while the collective Where We At (WWA) held exhibitions exclusively featuring the artwork of African-American women.[51] By the 1980s and 1990s, hip-hop graffiti began to predominate in urban communities. Most major cities had developed museums devoted to African-American artists. The National Endowment for the Arts provided increasing support for these artists.[citation needed] Late 20th/early 21st century Midnight Golfer by Eugene J. Martin, mixed media collage on rag paper, 1990.Kara Walker, a contemporary American artist, is known for her exploration of race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her artworks. Walker's silhouette images work to bridge unfinished folklore in the Antebellum South and are reminiscent of the earlier work of Harriet Powers. Her nightmarish yet fantastical images incorporate a cinematic feel. In 2007, Walker was listed among Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in The World, Artists and Entertainers".[52] Textile artists are part of African-American art history. According to the 2010 Quilting in America industry survey, there are 1.6 million quilters in the United States.[53] One historic non profit organization with several members who are quilters and fiber artists is Women of Visions, Inc. located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. WOV Inc artists past and present work in a variety of mediums. Those who have shown internationally include Renee Stout and Tina Williams Brewer. Influential contemporary artists include Larry D. Alexander, Laylah Ali, Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dawoud Bey, Camille Billops, Mark Bradford, Edward Clark, Willie Cole, Robert Colescott, Louis Delsarte, David Driskell, Leonardo Drew, Mel Edwards, Ricardo Francis, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Jerry Harris, Joseph Holston, Richard Hunt, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Katie S. Mallory, M. Scott Johnson, Rashid Johnson, Joe Lewis, Glenn Ligon, James Little, Edward L. Loper Sr., Alvin D. Loving, Kerry James Marshall, Eugene J. Martin, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Howard McCalebb, Charles McGill, Thaddeus Mosley, Sana Musasama, Senga Nengudi, Joe Overstreet, Martin Puryear, Adrian Piper, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, Gale Fulton Ross, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, John Solomon Sandridge, Raymond Saunders, John T. Scott, Joyce Scott, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Renee Stout, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Stanley Whitney, William T. Williams, Jack Whitten, Fred Wilson, Richard Wyatt Jr., Richard Yarde, and Purvis Young, Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, Barkley Hendricks, Jeff Sonhouse, William Walker, Ellsworth Ausby, Che Baraka, Emmett Wigglesworth, Otto Neals, Dindga McCannon, Terry Dixon (artist), Frederick J. Brown, and many others.[citation needed] GalleriesArtEarly African-American(Selection was limited by availability.) Painter Edward Mitchell Bannister, Pleasant Pastures, 1887.Painter Edward Mitchell Bannister, Pleasant Pastures, 1887. Painter Grafton Tyler Brown, Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, 1887.Painter Grafton Tyler Brown, Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, 1887. Sculptor Edmonia Lewis, Old Arrow Maker, 1872.Sculptor Edmonia Lewis, Old Arrow Maker, 1872. Painter Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898.Painter Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898. Harlem Renaissance(Selection was limited by availability.) Self-portrait by painter Malvin Gray Johnson, 1934.Self-portrait by painter Malvin Gray Johnson, 1934. Photo by the painter William H. Johnson, 1931.Photo by the painter William H. Johnson, 1931. Photographer James Van Der Zee's photo of a woman in evening attire, 1922.Photographer James Van Der Zee's photo of a woman in evening attire, 1922. William H. Johnson's Three Friends, c. 1945.William H. Johnson's Three Friends, c. 1945. Archibald Motley, Gettin' Religion, 1948.Archibald Motley, Gettin' Religion, 1948. Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller's Ethiopia Awakening, 1921.Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller's Ethiopia Awakening, 1921. Laura Wheeler's Heirlooms, 1916.Laura Wheeler's Heirlooms, 1916. Contemporary(Selection was limited by availability.) Larry D. Alexander, Send in the Clown, 2007.Larry D. Alexander, Send in the Clown, 2007. Adrian Piper's Alice Down the Rabbit Hole, 1965.Adrian Piper's Alice Down the Rabbit Hole, 1965. Howardeena Pindell's Queens, Festival, 2007.Howardeena Pindell's Queens, Festival, 2007. ArtistsHarlem Renaissance(Selection was limited by availability.) Painter, sculptor, illustrator and muralist Charles Alston in 1939.Painter, sculptor, illustrator and muralist Charles Alston in 1939. Sculptor and character artist Henry W. Bannarn in 1937.Sculptor and character artist Henry W. Bannarn in 1937. Sculptor Richmond Barthé working on a clay figure, n.d.Sculptor Richmond Barthé working on a clay figure, n.d. Artist Romare Bearden, photographed in his military uniform in 1944.Artist Romare Bearden, photographed in his military uniform in 1944. Sculptor Leslie Bolling carving a sculpture, n.d.Sculptor Leslie Bolling carving a sculpture, n.d. Modernist painter Beauford Delaney in 1952.Modernist painter Beauford Delaney in 1952. Painter and illustrator Aaron Douglas, n.d.Painter and illustrator Aaron Douglas, n.d. Painter Palmer Hayden working on a landscape, n.d.Painter Palmer Hayden working on a landscape, n.d. Artist Sargent Johnson, assessing his own sculpture, n.d.Artist Sargent Johnson, assessing his own sculpture, n.d. Artist Loïs Mailou Jones in 1936.Artist Loïs Mailou Jones in 1936. Sculptor Augusta Savage, photographed between 1935 and 1947.Sculptor Augusta Savage, photographed between 1935 and 1947. Painter Hale Woodruff at work on a canvas, c. 1936.Painter Hale Woodruff at work on a canvas, c. 1936. Contemporary(Selection was limited by availability.) Painter and collagist Mark Bradford in 2016.Painter and collagist Mark Bradford in 2016. Sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist Willie Cole in 2004.Sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist Willie Cole in 2004. Artist Leonardo Drew in Brooklyn studio in 2012.Artist Leonardo Drew in Brooklyn studio in 2012. Artist, scholar and curator David C. Driskell in 2016.Artist, scholar and curator David C. Driskell in 2016. Sculptor and collagist Jerry Harris in 2008.Sculptor and collagist Jerry Harris in 2008. Conceptual post-black artist Rashid Johnson in 2008.Conceptual post-black artist Rashid Johnson in 2008. Painter, collagist and draftsman Eugene J. Martin in 1990.Painter, collagist and draftsman Eugene J. Martin in 1990. Artists Sana Musasama and Janet Olivia Henry in 2019.Artists Sana Musasama and Janet Olivia Henry in 2019. Painter and mixed media artist Howardena Pindell in 2019.Painter and mixed media artist Howardena Pindell in 2019. Conceptual artist Adrian Piper in 2005.Conceptual artist Adrian Piper in 2005. Painter and mixed media sculptor Faith Ringgold in 2017.Painter and mixed media sculptor Faith Ringgold in 2017. Assemblage artist Betye Saar in 2017.Assemblage artist Betye Saar in 2017. Multimedia painter Raymond Saunders in 1995.Multimedia painter Raymond Saunders in 1995. Photographer and multimedia artist Lorna Simpson in 2009.Photographer and multimedia artist Lorna Simpson in 2009. Collections of African-American artMany American museums hold works by African-American artists, including Smithsonian American Art Museum[54] Colleges and universities with important collections include Fisk University, Spelman College and Howard University.[55] Other important collections of African-American art include the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, the Paul R. Jones collections at the University of Delaware and University of Alabama, the David C. Driskell Center's art collection, the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Mott-Warsh collection. See alsoflagUnited States portaliconArt portalAfrican-American cultureAfrican-American literatureAfrican-American musicBlack Arts MovementBlack Art: In the Absence of LightChicano artGullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage CorridorThe Highwaymen (landscape artists)James A. Porter Colloquium on African American ArtList of African-American visual artistsVisual art of the United States The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s.[3] Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride.[4] The movement expanded from the incredible accomplishments of artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Famously referred to by Larry Neal as the “aesthetic and spiritual sister of Black Power,"[5] BAM applied these same political ideas to art and literature.[6] and artists found new inspiration in their African heritage as a way to present the black experience in America. Artists like Aaron Douglas, Hale Woodruff, and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller pioneered the movement with a distinctly modernist aesthetic.[7] This style influenced the proliferation of African American art during the twentieth century. The poet and playwright Amiri Baraka is widely recognized as the founder of BAM.[8] In 1965, he established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre School (BART/S) in Harlem.[9] Baraka's example inspired many others to create organizations across the United States.[4] While many of these organizations were short-lived, their work has had a lasting influence. Some still exist, including the National Black Theatre, founded by Barabara Ann Teer in Harlem, NY. Background Novelist James Baldwin on the Albert Memorial, Kensington Gardens, LondonAfrican Americans had always made valuable artistic contributions to American culture. However, due to brutalities of slavery and the systemic racism of Jim Crow, these contributions often went unrecognised.[10] Despite continued oppression, African-American artists continued to create literature and art that would reflect their experiences. A high-point for these artists was the Harlem Renaissance—a literary era that spotlighted black people.[11] Harlem RenaissanceThere are many parallels that can be made between the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. The link is so strong, in fact, that some scholars refer to the Black Arts Movement era as the Second Renaissance.[12] One sees this connection clearly when reading Langston Hughes's The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (1926). Hughes's seminal essay advocates that black writers resist external attempts to control their art, arguing instead that the “truly great” black artist will be the one who can fully embrace and freely express his blackness.[12] Yet, the Harlem Renaissance lacked many of the radical political stances that defined BAM.[13] Inevitably, the Renaissance, and many of its ideas, failed to survive the Great Depression.[14] Civil Rights MovementDuring the Civil Rights era, activists paid more and more attention to the political uses of art. The contemporary work of those like James Baldwin and Chester Himes would show the possibility of creating a new 'black aesthetic'. A number of art groups were established during this period, such as the Umbra Poets and the Spiral Arts Alliance, which can be seen as precursors to BAM.[15] Civil Rights activists were also interested in creating black-owned media outlets, establishing journals (such as Freedomways, Black Dialogue, The Liberator , The Black Scholar and Soul Book) and publishing houses (such as Dudley Randall's Broadside Press and Third World Press.)[4] It was through these channels that BAM would eventually spread its art, literature, and political messages.[16][4] DevelopmentsThe beginnings of the Black Arts Movement may be traced to 1965, when Amiri Baraka, at that time still known as Leroi Jones, moved uptown to establish the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS) following the assassination of Malcolm X.[17] Rooted in the Nation of Islam, the Black Power movement and the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement grew out of a changing political and cultural climate in which Black artists attempted to create politically engaged work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience.[18] Black artists and intellectuals such as Baraka made it their project to reject older political, cultural, and artistic traditions.[16] Although the success of sit-ins and public demonstrations of the Black student movement in the 1960s may have "inspired black intellectuals, artists, and political activists to form politicized cultural groups,"[16] many Black Arts activists rejected the non-militant integrational ideologies of the Civil Rights Movement and instead favored those of the Black Liberation Struggle, which emphasized "self-determination through self-reliance and Black control of significant businesses, organization, agencies, and institutions."[19] According to the Academy of American Poets, "African American artists within the movement sought to create politically engaged work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience." The importance that the movement placed on Black autonomy is apparent through the creation of institutions such as the Black Arts Repertoire Theatre School (BARTS), created in the spring of 1964 by Baraka and other Black artists. The opening of BARTS in New York City often overshadow the growth of other radical Black Arts groups and institutions all over the United States. In fact, transgressional and international networks, those of various Left and nationalist (and Left nationalist) groups and their supports, existed far before the movement gained popularity.[16] Although the creation of BARTS did indeed catalyze the spread of other Black Arts institutions and the Black Arts movement across the nation, it was not solely responsible for the growth of the movement. Although the Black Arts Movement was a time filled with black success and artistic progress, the movement also faced social and racial ridicule. The leaders and artists involved called for Black Art to define itself and speak for itself from the security of its own institutions. For many of the contemporaries the idea that somehow black people could express themselves through institutions of their own creation and with ideas whose validity was confirmed by their own interests and measures was absurd.[20] While it is easy to assume that the movement began solely in the Northeast, it actually started out as "separate and distinct local initiatives across a wide geographic area," eventually coming together to form the broader national movement.[16] New York City is often referred to as the "birthplace" of the Black Arts Movement, because it was home to many revolutionary Black artists and activists. However, the geographical diversity of the movement opposes the misconception that New York (and Harlem, especially) was the primary site of the movement.[16] In its beginning states, the movement came together largely through printed media. Journals such as Liberator, The Crusader, and Freedomways created "a national community in which ideology and aesthetics were debated and a wide range of approaches to African-American artistic style and subject displayed."[16] These publications tied communities outside of large Black Arts centers to the movement and gave the general black public access to these sometimes exclusive circles. As a literary movement, Black Arts had its roots in groups such as the Umbra Workshop. Umbra (1962) was a collective of young Black writers based in Manhattan's Lower East Side; major members were writers Steve Cannon,[21] Tom Dent, Al Haynes, David Henderson, Calvin C. Hernton, Joe Johnson, Norman Pritchard, Lennox Raphael, Ishmael Reed, Lorenzo Thomas, James Thompson, Askia M. Touré (Roland Snellings; also a visual artist), Brenda Walcott, and musician-writer Archie Shepp. Touré, a major shaper of "cultural nationalism," directly influenced Jones. Along with Umbra writer Charles Patterson and Charles's brother, William Patterson, Touré joined Jones, Steve Young, and others at BARTS. Umbra, which produced Umbra Magazine, was the first post-civil rights Black literary group to make an impact as radical in the sense of establishing their own voice distinct from, and sometimes at odds with, the prevailing white literary establishment. The attempt to merge a black-oriented activist thrust with a primarily artistic orientation produced a classic split in Umbra between those who wanted to be activists and those who thought of themselves as primarily writers, though to some extent all members shared both views. Black writers have always had to face the issue of whether their work was primarily political or aesthetic. Moreover, Umbra itself had evolved out of similar circumstances: in 1960 a Black nationalist literary organization, On Guard for Freedom, had been founded on the Lower East Side by Calvin Hicks. Its members included Nannie and Walter Bowe, Harold Cruse (who was then working on The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 1967), Tom Dent, Rosa Guy, Joe Johnson, LeRoi Jones, and Sarah E. Wright, and others. On Guard was active in a famous protest at the United Nations of the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs Cuban invasion and was active in support of the Congolese liberation leader Patrice Lumumba. From On Guard, Dent, Johnson, and Walcott along with Hernton, Henderson, and Touré established Umbra. In 1967, the Visual Arts Workshop of the Organization of Black American Culture, composed of several artists such as Jeff Donaldson, William Walker, and more, painted the “Wall of Respect” which was a mural that represented the Black Arts Movement; what it stood for and who it was celebrating. The mural commemorated several important black figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, along with artists such as Aretha Franklin and Gwendolyn Brooks, etc.[22] It was a renowned symbol of the movement, placed in Chicago, that represented black culture and creativity, and was met with a lot of attention, support, and respect from the black community. It was a symbolic and important representation of the Black Arts Movement, as it directly celebrated and acknowledged the iconic figures of the Black community through art, emphasizing the importance of art for the community. Furthermore, it left a legacy and served as a beacon for the Black community, promoting Black consciousness and helping many Black people to learn and recognize their worth. In the eight years following the installation of the mural, over 1,500 murals were painted in black neighborhoods across the country, and by 1975, over 200 were painted in Chicago. It brought the community together symbolically, and literally, as rival gangs even declared the location of the mural to be neutral ground, supporting the artists and the movement.[23] In 1968, renowned Black theorist Barbara Ann Teer founded the National Black Theatre, located in Harlem, NY. Teer was an American writer, producer, teacher, actress and social visionary. Teer was an important black female intellectual, artist, and activist who contributed to the Black Arts Movement. Her theater was one of the first revenue generating Black theaters in the US. Teer’s art was politically and socially conscious and like many other contributors to the BAM, embraced African aesthetics, and rejected traditional theatrical notions of time and space. Teer's revolutionary and ritualistic dramas and plays blurred the lines between performers and audience, "encouraging all to use the performance event itself as an opportunity to bring about social change." AuthorsAnother formation of black writers at that time was the Harlem Writers Guild, led by John O. Killens, which included Maya Angelou, Jean Carey Bond, Rosa Guy, and Sarah Wright among others. But the Harlem Writers Guild focused on prose, primarily fiction, which did not have the mass appeal of poetry performed in the dynamic vernacular of the time. Poems could be built around anthems, chants, and political slogans, and thereby used in organizing work, which was not generally the case with novels and short stories. Moreover, the poets could and did publish themselves, whereas greater resources were needed to publish fiction. That Umbra was primarily poetry- and performance-oriented established a significant and classic characteristic of the movement's aesthetics. When Umbra split up, some members, led by Askia Touré and Al Haynes, moved to Harlem in late 1964 and formed the nationalist-oriented Uptown Writers Movement, which included poets Yusef Rahman, Keorapetse "Willie" Kgositsile from South Africa, and Larry Neal. Accompanied by young "New Music" musicians, they performed poetry all over Harlem. Members of this group joined LeRoi Jones in founding BARTS. Jones's move to Harlem was short-lived. In December 1965 he returned to his home, Newark (N.J.), and left BARTS in serious disarray. BARTS failed but the Black Arts center concept was irrepressible, mainly because the Black Arts movement was so closely aligned with the then-burgeoning Black Power movement. The mid-to-late 1960s was a period of intense revolutionary ferment. Beginning in 1964, rebellions in Harlem and Rochester, New York, initiated four years of long hot summers. Watts, Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, and many other cities went up in flames, culminating in nationwide explosions of resentment and anger following the April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Nathan Hare, author of The Black Anglo-Saxons (1965), was the founder of 1960s Black Studies. Expelled from Howard University, Hare moved to San Francisco State University, where the battle to establish a Black Studies department was waged during a five-month strike during the 1968–69 school year. As with the establishment of Black Arts, which included a range of forces, there was broad activity in the Bay Area around Black Studies, including efforts led by poet and professor Sarah Webster Fabio at Merrit College. The initial thrust of Black Arts ideological development came from the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a national organization with a strong presence in New York City. Both Touré and Neal were members of RAM. After RAM, the major ideological force shaping the Black Arts movement was the US (as opposed to "them") organization led by Maulana Karenga. Also ideologically important was Elijah Muhammad's Chicago-based Nation of Islam. These three formations provided both style and conceptual direction for Black Arts artists, including those who were not members of these or any other political organization. Although the Black Arts Movement is often considered a New York-based movement, two of its three major forces were located outside New York City. LocationsAs the movement matured, the two major locations of Black Arts' ideological leadership, particularly for literary work, were California's Bay Area because of the Journal of Black Poetry and The Black Scholar, and the Chicago–Detroit axis because of Negro Digest/Black World and Third World Press in Chicago, and Broadside Press and Naomi Long Madgett's Lotus Press in Detroit. The only major Black Arts literary publications to come out of New York were the short-lived (six issues between 1969 and 1972) Black Theatre magazine, published by the New Lafayette Theatre, and Black Dialogue, which had actually started in San Francisco (1964–68) and relocated to New York (1969–72). Although the journals and writing of the movement greatly characterized its success, the movement placed a great deal of importance on collective oral and performance art. Public collective performances drew a lot of attention to the movement, and it was often easier to get an immediate response from a collective poetry reading, short play, or street performance than it was from individual performances.[16] The people involved in the Black Arts Movement used the arts as a way to liberate themselves. The movement served as a catalyst for many different ideas and cultures to come alive. This was a chance for African Americans to express themselves in a way that most would not have expected. In 1967 LeRoi Jones visited Karenga in Los Angeles and became an advocate of Karenga's philosophy of Kawaida. Kawaida, which produced the "Nguzo Saba" (seven principles), Kwanzaa, and an emphasis on African names, was a multifaceted, categorized activist philosophy. Jones also met Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver and worked with a number of the founding members of the Black Panthers. Additionally, Askia Touré was a visiting professor at San Francisco State and was to become a leading (and long-lasting) poet as well as, arguably, the most influential poet-professor in the Black Arts movement. Playwright Ed Bullins and poet Marvin X had established Black Arts West, and Dingane Joe Goncalves had founded the Journal of Black Poetry (1966). This grouping of Ed Bullins, Dingane Joe Goncalves, LeRoi Jones, Sonia Sanchez, Askia M. Touré, and Marvin X became a major nucleus of Black Arts leadership.[24] As the movement grew, ideological conflicts arose and eventually became too great for the movement to continue to exist as a large, coherent collective. The Black AestheticPart of a series onAfrican AmericansHistoryCultureReligionPoliticsCivic / economic groupsSportsSub-communitiesDialects and languagesPopulationPrejudiceflag United States portalCategoryIndexvteAlthough The Black Aesthetic was first coined by Larry Neal in 1968, across all the discourse, The Black Aesthetic has no overall real definition agreed by all Black Aesthetic theorists.[25] It is loosely defined, without any real consensus besides that the theorists of The Black Aesthetic agree that "art should be used to galvanize the black masses to revolt against their white capitalist oppressors".[26] Pollard also argues in her critique of the Black Arts Movement that The Black Aesthetic "celebrated the African origins of the Black community, championed black urban culture, critiqued Western aesthetics, and encouraged the production and reception of black arts by black people". In The Black Arts Movement by Larry Neal, where the Black Arts Movement is discussed as “aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept,” The Black Aesthetic is described by Neal as being the merge of the ideologies of Black Power with the artistic values of African expression.[27] Larry Neal attests: "When we speak of a 'Black aesthetic' several things are meant. First, we assume that there is already in existence the basis for such an aesthetic. Essentially, it consists of an African-American cultural tradition. But this aesthetic is finally, by implication, broader than that tradition. It encompasses most of the usable elements of the Third World culture. The motive behind the Black aesthetic is the destruction of the white thing, the destruction of white ideas, and white ways of looking at the world."[28] The Black Aesthetic also refers to ideologies and perspectives of art that center on Black culture and life. This Black Aesthetic encouraged the idea of Black separatism, and in trying to facilitate this, hoped to further strengthen black ideals, solidarity, and creativity.[29] In The Black Aesthetic (1971), Addison Gayle argues that Black artists should work exclusively on uplifting their identity while refusing to appease white folks.[30] The Black Aesthetic work as a "corrective," where black people are not supposed to desire the “ranks of Norman Mailer or a William Styron”.[25] Black people are encouraged by Black artists that take their own Black identity, reshaping and redefining themselves for themselves by themselves via art as a medium.[31] Hoyt Fuller defines The Black Aesthetic "in terms of the cultural experiences and tendencies expressed in artist’ work"[25] while another meaning of The Black Aesthetic comes from Ron Karenga, who argues for three main characteristics to The Black Aesthetic and Black art itself: functional, collective, and committing. Karenga says, "Black Art must expose the enemy, praise the people, and support the revolution". The notion "art for art’s sake" is killed in the process, binding the Black Aesthetic to the revolutionary struggle, a struggle that is the reasoning behind reclaiming Black art in order to return to African culture and tradition for Black people.[32] Under Karenga’s definition of The Black Aesthetic, art that doesn’t fight for the Black Revolution isn’t considered as art at all, needed the vital context of social issues as well as an artistic value. Among these definitions, the central theme that is the underlying connection of the Black Arts, Black Aesthetic, and Black Power movements is then this: the idea of group identity, which is defined by Black artists of organizations as well as their objectives.[30] The narrowed view of The Black Aesthetic, often described as Marxist by critics, brought upon conflicts of the Black Aesthetic and Black Arts Movement as a whole in areas that drove the focus of African culture;[33] In The Black Arts Movement and Its Critics, David Lionel Smith argues in saying “The Black Aesthetic,” one suggests a single principle, closed and prescriptive in which just really sustains the oppressiveness of defining race in one single identity.[25] The search of finding the true “blackness” of Black people through art by the term creates obstacles in achieving a refocus and return to African culture. Smith compares the statement “The Black Aesthetic” to “Black Aesthetics”, the latter leaving multiple, open, descriptive possibilities. The Black Aesthetic, particularly Karenga’s definition, has also received additional critiques; Ishmael Reed, author of Neo-HooDoo Manifesto, argues for artistic freedom, ultimately against Karenga’s idea of the Black Aesthetic, which Reed finds limiting and something he can’t ever sympathize to.[34] The example Reed brings up is if a Black artist wants to paint black guerrillas, that is okay, but if the Black artist “does so only deference to Ron Karenga, something’s wrong”.[34] The focus of blackness in context of maleness was another critique raised with the Black Aesthetic.[26] Pollard argues that the art made with the artistic and social values of the Black Aesthetic emphasizes on the male talent of blackness, and it’s uncertain whether the movement only includes women as an afterthought. As there begins a change in the Black population, Trey Ellis points out other flaws in his essay The New Black Aesthetic.[35] Blackness in terms of cultural background can no longer be denied in order to appease or please white or black people. From mulattos to a "post-bourgeois movement driven by a second generation of middle class," blackness isn’t a singular identity as the phrase "The Black Aesthetic" forces it to be but rather multifaceted and vast.[35] BAM also turned to the religious tradition of voodoo in defining black aesthetics. James Baldwin was critical of both the black church and Nation of Islam. He argued that Christianity had only been forced on black people to rationalize and justify slavery and colonization. Nation of Islam failed in its strong mission to separate itself and black people from white people, said Baldwin, especially looking at their culture of expensive suits and cars all the while demonizing white people. Voodoo then became an alternative to Christianity and Islam for BAM. The historical tradition of voodoo among enslaved Africans had been forgotten in favor of assimilation to the white, Christian identity. The turn to voodoo is therefore regardes as a pan-African reclaiming of the roots. The approximation to voodoo is maybe most clear in the poetry collection "Hoodoo Hollerin Bebop Ghosts" by Larry Neal and the novels "Neo-Hoo-Doo Manifesto" and "Mumbo Jumbo” by Ishmael Reed.[36] Major worksBlack ArtAmiri Baraka's poem "Black Art" serves as one of his more controversial, poetically profound supplements to the Black Arts Movement. In this piece, Baraka merges politics with art, criticizing poems that are not useful to or adequately representative of the Black struggle. First published in 1966, a period particularly known for the Civil Rights Movement, the political aspect of this piece underscores the need for a concrete and artistic approach to the realistic nature involving racism and injustice. Serving as the recognized artistic component to and having roots in the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement aims to grant a political voice to black artists (including poets, dramatists, writers, musicians, etc.). Playing a vital role in this movement, Baraka calls out what he considers to be unproductive and assimilatory actions shown by political leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. He describes prominent Black leaders as being "on the steps of the white house...kneeling between the sheriff's thighs negotiating coolly for his people." Baraka also presents issues of euro-centric mentality, by referring to Elizabeth Taylor as a prototypical model in a society that influences perceptions of beauty, emphasizing its influence on individuals of white and black ancestry. Baraka aims his message toward the Black community, with the purpose of coalescing African Americans into a unified movement, devoid of white influences. "Black Art" serves as a medium for expression meant to strengthen that solidarity and creativity, in terms of the Black Aesthetic. Baraka believes poems should "shoot…come at you, love what you are" and not succumb to mainstream desires.[37] He ties this approach into the emergence of hip-hop, which he paints as a movement that presents "live words…and live flesh and coursing blood."[37] Baraka's cathartic structure and aggressive tone are comparable to the beginnings of hip-hop music, which created controversy in the realm of mainstream acceptance, because of its "authentic, un-distilled, unmediated forms of contemporary black urban music."[38] Baraka believes that integration inherently takes away from the legitimacy of having a Black identity and Aesthetic in an anti-Black world. Through pure and unapologetic blackness, and with the absence of white influences, Baraka believes a black world can be achieved. Though hip-hop has been serving as a recognized salient musical form of the Black Aesthetic, a history of unproductive integration is seen across the spectrum of music, beginning with the emergence of a newly formed narrative in mainstream appeal in the 1950s. Much of Baraka's cynical disillusionment with unproductive integration can be drawn from the 1950s, a period of rock and roll, in which "record labels actively sought to have white artists "cover" songs that were popular on the rhythm-and-blues charts"[38] originally performed by African-American artists. The problematic nature of unproductive integration is also exemplified by Run-DMC, an American hip-hop group founded in 1981, who became widely accepted after a calculated collaboration with the rock group Aerosmith on a remake of the latter's "Walk This Way" took place in 1986, evidently appealing to young white audiences.[38] Hip-hop emerged as an evolving genre of music that continuously challenged mainstream acceptance, most notably with the development of rap in the 1990s. A significant and modern example of this is Ice Cube, a well-known American rapper, songwriter, and actor, who introduced subgenre of hip-hop known as "gangsta rap," merged social consciousness and political expression with music. With the 1960s serving as a more blatantly racist period of time, Baraka notes the revolutionary nature of hip-hop, grounded in the unmodified expression through art. This method of expression in music parallels significantly with Baraka's ideals presented in "Black Art," focusing on poetry that is also productively and politically driven. The Revolutionary Theatre"The Revolutionary Theatre" is a 1965 essay by Baraka that was an important contribution to the Black Arts Movement, discussing the need for change through literature and theater arts. He says: "We will scream and cry, murder, run through the streets in agony, if it means some soul will be moved, moved to actual life understanding of what the world is, and what it ought to be." Baraka wrote his poetry, drama, fiction and essays in a way that would shock and awaken audiences to the political concerns of black Americans, which says much about what he was doing with this essay.[39] It also did not seem coincidental to him that Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy had been assassinated within a few years because Baraka believed that every voice of change in America had been murdered, which led to the writing that would come out of the Black Arts Movement. In his essay, Baraka says: "The Revolutionary Theatre is shaped by the world, and moves to reshape the world, using as its force the natural force and perpetual vibrations of the mind in the world. We are history and desire, what we are, and what any experience can make us." With his thought-provoking ideals and references to a euro-centric society, he imposes the notion that black Americans should stray from a white aesthetic in order to find a black identity. In his essay, he says: "The popular white man's theatre like the popular white man's novel shows tired white lives, and the problems of eating white sugar, or else it herds bigcaboosed blondes onto huge stages in rhinestones and makes believe they are dancing or singing." This, having much to do with a white aesthetic, further proves what was popular in society and even what society had as an example of what everyone should aspire to be, like the "bigcaboosed blondes" that went "onto huge stages in rhinestones". Furthermore, these blondes made believe they were "dancing and singing" which Baraka seems to be implying that white people dancing is not what dancing is supposed to be at all. These allusions bring forth the question of where black Americans fit in the public eye. Baraka says: "We are preaching virtue and feeling, and a natural sense of the self in the world. All men live in the world, and the world ought to be a place for them to live." Baraka's essay challenges the idea that there is no space in politics or in society for black Americans to make a difference through different art forms that consist of, but are not limited to, poetry, song, dance, and art. Effects on society Ntozake Shange (1978), author of for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.According to the Academy of American Poets, "many writers--Native Americans, Latinos/as, gays and lesbians, and younger generations of African Americans have acknowledged their debt to the Black Arts Movement."[18] The movement lasted for about a decade, through the mid-1960s and into the 1970s. This was a period of controversy and change in the world of literature. One major change came through in the portrayal of new ethnic voices in the United States. English-language literature, prior to the Black Arts Movement, was dominated by white authors.[40] African Americans became a greater presence not only in the field of literature but in all areas of the arts. Theater groups, poetry performances, music and dance were central to the movement. Through different forms of media, African Americans were able to educate others about the expression of cultural differences and viewpoints. In particular, black poetry readings allowed African Americans to use vernacular dialogues. This was shown in the Harlem Writers Guild, which included black writers such as Maya Angelou and Rosa Guy. These performances were used to express political slogans and as a tool for organization. Theater performances also were used to convey community issues and organizations. The theaters, as well as cultural centers, were based throughout America and were used for community meetings, study groups and film screenings. Newspapers were a major tool in spreading the Black Arts Movement. In 1964, Black Dialogue was published, making it the first major Arts movement publication. The Black Arts Movement, although short, is essential to the history of the United States. It spurred political activism and use of speech throughout every African-American community. It allowed African Americans the chance to express their voices in the mass media as well as become involved in communities. It can be argued that "the Black Arts movement produced some of the most exciting poetry, drama, dance, music, visual art, and fiction of the post-World War II United States" and that many important "post-Black artists" such as Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and August Wilson were shaped by the movement.[16] The Black Arts Movement also provided incentives for public funding of the arts and increased public support of various arts initiatives.[16] LegacyThe movement has been seen as one of the most important times in African-American literature. It inspired black people to establish their own publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. It led to the creation of African-American Studies programs within universities.[41] The movement was triggered by the assassination of Malcolm X.[17] Among the well-known writers who were involved with the movement are Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Hoyt W. Fuller, and Rosa Guy.[42][43] Although not strictly part of the Movement, other notable African-American writers such as novelists Toni Morrison and Ishmael Reed share some of its artistic and thematic concerns. Although Reed is neither a movement apologist nor advocate, he said: I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that.[44]
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Artist: JOHN WADE
Type: MIXED MEDIA
Year of Production: 1975
Size: Medium
Theme: Art
Style: Americana
Framing: Framed
Original/Licensed Reprint: Original
Region of Origin: Pennsylvania, USA
Subject: Landscape
Time Period Produced: 1970-1979